On Claiming an Affinity With Adam Smith From Living in Kirkcaldy
Claiming an affinity with Adam Smith from living in, though much changed, Kirkcaldy is liable to self-anointed delusions and to ridicule from critics.
A clear example of this is seen in an article from ‘deepest’ Australia, which illustrates how an idea spread about by the person, is picked up and exaggerated into a simple error of fact, adding conviction to the original misleading invention (his critics say ‘intention’), which in due course could turn into an historical ‘fact’.
Alex Millmow, a senior lecturer in economics at the University of Ballarat, writes in The Canberra Times HERE:
“Brown takes centre stage in ironic tale of tragedy”
“Born in Kirkcaldy, near Edinburgh, Brown was also an astute follower of the economics of his famous townsman Adam Smith, who wrote The Wealth of Nations in 1776.”
Comment
The readable article on Gordon Brown, British Prime Minister, is marred by a fiction 'contrived' by him and, say his opponents, is deliberately misleading.
Gordon Brown was not 'born in Kirkcaldy, near Edinburgh'. He was born in Glasgow, somewhat further away and which has entirely different political connotations in Scotland.
Brown alludes to being 'from Kirkcaldy' because a) his parents took him from Glasgow to Kirkcaldy while an infant when his father became the Minister at St Bride's church in the town; and b) it is where Adam Smith was born in 1723, which has notable and favourable international connotations through the ideas of the Wealth Of Nations and the ideas of Moral Sentiments, which Brown quotes as regularly.
Brown regularly repeats a sentence in his speeches to the effect: 'coming from Kirkcaldy I have a special understanding of Adam Smith's ideas', though such sentences do not make much sense, and are exposed to corrective ridicule in the press, adding to his current image problems.
It is such quirks of character that have undone him for the moment; politics is a fickle profession; he could bounce back, he could go under.
He should change his 'scripts' about himself, the problems his supporters feel, and his 'needle stuck' mantras that avoid inspiring answers for the vacuous 'getting on with the job' lines that he normally deploys.
Knowing him since student days, I had always hoped and expected for better days at the top for him. What is happening to him is more sad than tragic.
A clear example of this is seen in an article from ‘deepest’ Australia, which illustrates how an idea spread about by the person, is picked up and exaggerated into a simple error of fact, adding conviction to the original misleading invention (his critics say ‘intention’), which in due course could turn into an historical ‘fact’.
Alex Millmow, a senior lecturer in economics at the University of Ballarat, writes in The Canberra Times HERE:
“Brown takes centre stage in ironic tale of tragedy”
“Born in Kirkcaldy, near Edinburgh, Brown was also an astute follower of the economics of his famous townsman Adam Smith, who wrote The Wealth of Nations in 1776.”
Comment
The readable article on Gordon Brown, British Prime Minister, is marred by a fiction 'contrived' by him and, say his opponents, is deliberately misleading.
Gordon Brown was not 'born in Kirkcaldy, near Edinburgh'. He was born in Glasgow, somewhat further away and which has entirely different political connotations in Scotland.
Brown alludes to being 'from Kirkcaldy' because a) his parents took him from Glasgow to Kirkcaldy while an infant when his father became the Minister at St Bride's church in the town; and b) it is where Adam Smith was born in 1723, which has notable and favourable international connotations through the ideas of the Wealth Of Nations and the ideas of Moral Sentiments, which Brown quotes as regularly.
Brown regularly repeats a sentence in his speeches to the effect: 'coming from Kirkcaldy I have a special understanding of Adam Smith's ideas', though such sentences do not make much sense, and are exposed to corrective ridicule in the press, adding to his current image problems.
It is such quirks of character that have undone him for the moment; politics is a fickle profession; he could bounce back, he could go under.
He should change his 'scripts' about himself, the problems his supporters feel, and his 'needle stuck' mantras that avoid inspiring answers for the vacuous 'getting on with the job' lines that he normally deploys.
Knowing him since student days, I had always hoped and expected for better days at the top for him. What is happening to him is more sad than tragic.
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